[1]https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/t/o/p.tornberg/k.p.tornberg.ht...
Maybe your literacy is not as great as you think it is and unfamiliar written tones are difficult for you. The result is personal discomfort and it's easier to blame external reality rather than your own ignorance and inexperience.
You can have beliefs, but you also must have heart and a brain to open your world view to other perspectives. This is what being an adult is all about. Not this crap that we see today.
Disagreements on the best day to provide services to the public are still attempting the same common objective.
Disagreements on which people will have their rights removed are not a "let's agree to disagree" sort of thing.
I would say the opposite of partisan would be someone who actively seeks to understand and relate to the views of those who they disagree with, or who are from their out-group. This would also imply independence of thought.
The Overton window is not involved in defining the middle, and the middle definitively do not need to agree 50% with any specific decision done by the left or right.
This is factually not true. Levels of violence by the state against citizens in the United States is at near historic lows. The state killed dozens of children in Waco in the 90s, bombed domestic buildings in Philadelphia in the 80s, shot protestors Kent State University in the 70s, going back to the early years of the USA where protests and rebellions were put down with private militias and bounties. The shooting by one officer of one protester in a scuffle with officers wouldn't have reached the history books in any other time.
What "historic lows" are you talking about?
[1]: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/policekillings_total.htm...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enfor...
[3]: https://www.consumershield.com/articles/how-many-people-are-...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington...
There sure were a lot of people in that crowd chanting "Hang Mike Pence" but I guess if your point is just that not all of them were doing it then I suppose you're right.
Be serious.
Do you see how you are on the lower end of a slippery slope?
Sure seemed like it. All those people chanting to kill the VP? Sure seems like it.
> How come no one's been charged for assassination attempt?
Corruption? Doesn't change the facts. They were trying to kill the VP.
Pretend what you want, there were 1500+ that day that certain people said were just tourists.
"1,500 people were trying to kill the VP" - mentally ill person
At best you are a troll. At best.
I do agree with what you, denuoweb, said though, you are a mentally ill person.
Edit: Oh, I see, you are trying to circumvent a ban or something and creating multiple sock puppet accounts or something? No.
Is this irony? You literally just posted about arguments from vocal minorities on HN and other social media driving people away.
I am not making fun of you. I treat words very seriously. I also treat them seriously enough to not direct every conversation to my pet cause ( whatever it may be ).
And all this is before we even to get to the meaty part as to whether the people you are trying to convince are convinced something is a problem. So far, all I really see is posture and hand-wringing.
You wanna say something? Say it.
How would you not consider that fact? Do you think I don't know there's plenty of people who think of HN as a nazi bar? Do you think the hacker ethos is to consider the "societal mood"?
Sure. You can guess the "camp", but so what? Must we all use value-neutral language when discussing an issue? I take issue with centrism for centrism's sake. If your goal is to take two points of view and treat them as equals then that grants a systemic advantage to whoever has the more insane view. By not calling something what it is you legitimize atrocities. Fuck centrism. Believe in something, you coward.
:D I appreciate it. I truly do. I am somewhat aghast that someone would suggest that centrism, as a whole, is a not, in itself, a belief system. If anything, centrists seem to believe in actual principles ( and thus sides with whoever seems to embody those best at any given time ). On the other hand, it really are those pesky zealot believers that are causing all that ruckus..
<< By not calling something what it is you legitimize atrocities.
Oh man. Please, share with me the unsaid truth that must not be spoken. I am not joking. Speak whatever is in your heart and I will personally carry it far and wide in the cities near me.
What principles could a person have that would put them in the center of US politics right now?
> Please, share with me the unsaid truth that must not be spoken. I am not joking. Speak whatever is in your heart and I will personally carry it far and wide in the cities near me.
Sure. My principles are that those with power must be held to higher, not lower, standards of conduct and accountability. When you act like maybe there's something to the obvious and boldfaced lie that the two recent killings by ICE* were done in self-defense then you are shifting the scope of acceptable conduct towards lawlessness. Playing both sides makes you an enemy of civil society.
The "liberal" media has their version of events, largely blaming "insufficient training." The killers had 10+ years of experience in their roles. When interviewing administration officials reporters refuse to call them liars or question their motivations, instead suggesting that they are simply mistaken.
And of course the official right-wing line is that the murdered civilians were extremist terrorists who attacked law enforcement officers and deserved what they got. Full-throated endorsement of street executions. Where is your centrism? What is the center between these two positions? I align myself more with the former because it's at least not totally deranged. I'm not a partisan because I don't think the Democrats or media agree with my values, but I'm also not going to equivocate between them and Republicans and act like I'm stranded in the middle of two positions. The solution isn't in the middle of two wrong answers, it's something else entirely.
*: (or was it CBP? They all blend together all of a sudden)
<< What principles could a person have that would put them in the center of US politics right now?
Any? All? None? Everything in between? The question itself is rather faulty, which prompted me to respond the way I did. There is a reason for it too beyond pure rhetoric: centrists overlap with US independents so their goals are not as easily labeled ( I suppose ).
Maybe I am approaching it the wrong way.
What do you think each side of US American politics are defined by what principle now?
<< Playing both sides makes you an enemy of civil society.
See.. it is almost as if you did not read my opening paragraph. Statement like that by itself is not exactly conducive to dialogue. I normally would not care, but I note it as we are attempting to have a conversation. Statement like that undermines it for a simple person like me.
<< Where is your centrism?
Oh boy.
<< What is the center between these two positions?
In the middle?
<< When you act like maybe there's something to the obvious and boldfaced lie that the two recent killings by ICE* were done in self-defense then you are shifting the scope of acceptable conduct towards lawlessness.
I can give you Pretti. Despite some previous engagements suggesting he was not just 'some rando, who was at the wrong time at the wrong place', his death was less defensible in the context than Good's ( she actually did swipe that officer.. ). We can argue all day over intentions and whatnot, but that is basically where middle ground lies: in taking each thing as its own case. But we will not do any of that, will we.
<< The solution isn't in the middle of two wrong answers, it's something else entirely.
Color me intrigued. What is the answer?
The paper says partisanship is strongly correlated with frequency of posting. Are you also pointing out that the commenters here are very partisan and this shows the paper is correct?
People wield "the middle" as if it is some magic incantation that makes them correct or immune to criticism. In fact, it is generally the "middle" or, as I prefer to call them, the "inert" that tend to be wrong since they are always behind the curve rather than ahead of it.
In Milgram's experiment, only the most "partisan" refused to deliver the shocks. The "middle" dutifully continued right to the end and delivered the highest voltages even as their own distress mounted.
You may avoid politics, but politics may not avoid you.
"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
<< That just means you cling to your wrong ideas with the same tenacity as your correct ones.
It is bold of you to assume that your ideas are correct and, consequently, my ideas are not.
It is not just bold, but also kinda well, not smart, to assume what my ideas are. For all you know, I believe circles are, in fact, round. Are you going to argue against roundness of circles now?
But to top of it all off with a quotable quote that seems like it should mean something, and yet manages to mean nothing, because, apart from it being -- lets say -- misapplied in general, it is also ridiculously wrong in the context.
How does work for an outright rejection?
We can stop talking now. We have no useful thoughts to exchange.
>You may avoid politics, but politics may not avoid you.
This is the correct view, in the sense that if you don't belong to some kind of tribe, you'll get ripped off by someone who does. The inert group are not wrong, but by participating less than the others in the battle for their collective self interest, they will end up being the ones taken advantage of.
The rest are just going ‘WTF is this shit?!?’
You're being uncharitable by assuming the commenter is disagreeing that with the point that the Overton window has moved. Which, I've heard, is typical of partisans.
I don't care to have the conversation or change anyone's mind but your post is the perfect example why people in the middle disengaged from the loud minority that takes over online spaces.
I see this all the time. It's some combination of "X was hypocrditical" or "X was mean to me", which leads to "and that's why I support [the opposite of X] as [a centrist, a moderate, someone with common sense]". And reaching for a ~30 year old siege is the reachiest of reaches.
This is the Myth of the Moderate. There is no such thing a "moderate" or a "centrist" in the modern day. Ask them about issues and they're just conservatives who are embarrassed about it.
While I share the hope, it's probably not going to happen: most folks have moved from FB to use AI chats. Now it's the tool to manipulate opinions and habits. And it's working very well and nuanced. With AI, the society will be more divided, more polarised, and less happy than before.
And there's no way back already! Even if the web search works well one day, the folks desire (and habit!) to outsource thinking is too strong, especially among younger.
The 'younger' only because they're forming habits in the time of AI. Most all humans tend towards minimising cognitive load; the making hard decisions and consideration of complex topics and situations. It's all about the tools that were available to you at the time you started to need those tools. The core is the same. Low-level, essentially sub-conscious, human behaviour change doesn't happen on a noticeable time frame^.
^ my opinion, not based on research. ie. feel free to critique.
What has changed is the awareness of the hacks that work on the human lizard brain, and therefore pandering to all that makes us weak and powerless in exchange for money and convenience. That's the part that makes it feel, for me, more likely that there's no way back. Those hacks will only get more refined and more streamlined into exploitation.
While I agree for less happy, I am not seeing AI chatbot been more divisive and polirised than social media in general. Am I missing something?
It's devisive as much as it can be.
Social media will stop becoming relevant when we stop treating each person as a mini corporation that needs to provide value, trying to optimize every aspect of your life in a life-long marketing campaign.
I know social media had some real use cases. CL and FB marketplace are probably one good example of that. But the rest of it.. best I can say, my overall happiness jumped up after first month of going on a media diet.
It used to feel like the internet was a place you went to explore and learn. It was harder to use and navigate, so most ordinary people did not spend much time there. Back then, a lot of people believed it would make the world better because everyone could access information and educate themselves.
That optimism did not survive contact with reality. Today you can carry essentially all human knowledge in your pocket, yet much of the internet is funneled through a handful of corporations whose business model is advertising and attention. Instead of helping people discover things, the dominant platforms optimize for keeping you scrolling with outrage, dopamine hits, and low value content. Worst thing is of course politics which moved in here.
The joy of exploring is done, but honestly I think that it atleast partly that the og users got older. Hackernews somehow reminding me the "old Internet", somehow alike people with desire to explore and have honest discussion on genuinely interesting topic.
There's still great stuff out there, it's still as hard to find and navigate as it has always been. It's still as shady and as illegal (if you care about copyright) as it has always been. Most people still don't bother to do it, you just became a part of that category.
Here, let me try snapping you out of that bubble a little bit and make you one of the today's lucky ten thousand: find a category that interests you on fmhy(.)net (SFW, I promise), see how long it takes you to spot something you had no idea existed outside your bubble.
Hyper-monetization killed it all
Vocal minorities vary but tend just to excite the others, not to affirm any point.
FB and Twitter seem to drive heavy political ideological content at the slightest hint of engagement.
I think a problem with loud poles and a quiet middle is the political class takes its queue from the internet discourse. The algorithms drive content, but in a reverse fashion they also poll the electorate, providing signal the political scientists use to calibrate messaging.
This is unavoidable. "The dignity of the platform" is a euphemism for moral cowardice masquerading as reason and civility.
Someone like Charlie Kirk - a bigoted troll who used "debate" as a weapon - would have fitted right in here, because he couched his bigotry in a civil manner.
MLK is relevant here, in his description of "moderates":
> more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.
Status quo and its increasingly damaged institutions are some of the few things that keep events from spiraling out of control.
And I would personally abstain from spitting on Kirk's grave. At the rate things are going, it is hardly a given a newcomer will be willing to talk at all. [edit: overtly antagonizing section removed]
Reminds me of the trial of Socrates...
As a Canadian, I feel that people on opposite ends of the spectrum, although they might literally call for the deaths of those on the other end, have a huge amount in common with each other. Canada has problems, but its still a pretty great country. If people would step outside of the hyper-partisan identities they've been constructing for themselves online and try to see the concerns of the other side, they'd probably find they're not as horrible or misguided as they might think while reading facebook or reddit. If the reasonable centre that dominates public policy can continue to ween itself off of American social media, there's hope for a strong, unified country that's capable of having adult political discourse between people who disagree on finer points. We clearly have some challenges to face (e.g. separatism) in getting there though.
If you're in the U.S. though, things appear very different. While both political parties seem to have been co-opted by billionaire interests, one party has fallen into what can be described as, if we're being charitable, a cult of personality. Unfortunately, that personality has been doing things that are impossible to dismiss as the online hysteria of the other side. Threatening allies with military invasion. High seas piracy. Kidnapping of a foreign leader (admittedly a not very nice one) from his nation. Betraying allies to cozy up to dictators like Putin. Torching global markets with constantly changing tariffs. The list goes on. Then there's what's going on within U.S. borders. If you're in the U.S., the polarization isn't just online. It's something very real. I feel that somebody opposing what ICE is doing in Minnesota and a die-hard Trump supporter really don't have a lot in common and I don't think removing them from online social media will result in civil discourse between the two. There are very real differences there that are coming to a head.
One thing is true: actual, active socializing is happening in chat apps (and Discord), not FB, X, or IG.
It.. feels accurate. I don't frequent FB or other mainstream social spots, but even on HN, the pattern is relatively clear. Vocal minorities tend to drive the conversations to their respective corners, while the middle quietly moves to, at most, watch at a safe distance.
Part of me is happy about it. The sooner we get out of the social media landscape, the better the society as a whole will be.. in my opinion anyway. Still, we have already lost so much of the original internet. That loss makes me sad.